2003 Israeli legislative election
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Turnout | 67.81% ( 10.89 pp) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
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Legislative elections were held in Israel on 28 January 2003. The result was a resounding victory for Ariel Sharon's Likud.
The previous separate election for Prime Minister was scrapped, and the post was returned to the leader of the party successfully forming the working coalition government.
Background
Second Intifada
Similarly to the 2001 elections for the position of prime minister, these elections were also affected by the Second Intifada, which was a period of intense fighting and Palestinian militancy campaigns. Despite the fact that since the last elections there was a significant deterioration in the security situation in Israel, after Operation Defensive Shield in May 2002 and Operation Determined Path in June 2002, there was an improvement in the security situation.
The fact that
Although Prime Minister Ehud Barak did not run in these elections (and in practice was almost two years out of the political system), at the time Ehud Barak and the Labor Party were widely considered by many in the Israeli public as those directly responsible for the outbreak of the second intifada.
In general, similar to previous elections, the Intifada created a significant gap in the public opinions, as the public which once identified itself as "moderate left" drifted significantly away from the left, leaving a vacuum between it and the far left group. This situation significantly affected the potential voters of the Labor Party, which since 1977 relied primarily on the moderate left.
In addition, the situation in which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced that early elections would be held, just several days after the Labor party left the unity government, caught the Labor party in a situation in which it did not yet receive a chance to elect the head of the party. When it eventually elected Amram Mitzna, he had little more than one month to gather the attention of the Israeli public and convince the Israeli public of his positions—the most prominent among them being his claim that Israel had no interest in continuing to have control in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank.
Labor party leadership struggle
After Barak took a break from politics in late February 2001, the Labor party established a unity government with the Likud party, in which
Although winning the Labor party's leader position allegedly promised Ben Eliezer his candidacy for prime minister for the Labor party, in practice the problematic election process led to many issues which were also affected by the lack of enthusiasm from the dovish faction of the Labor party to Ben Eliezer's policy as defense minister. After making serious allegations of racial discrimination against him due to being
Disintegration of the unity government
Operation Defensive Shield and Operation Determined Path, which ended the Israeli policy of restraint in response to Palestinian terrorist attacks, succeeded in considerably reducing the numbers of terrorist attacks carried out against Israel; nevertheless, they led to the disintegration of the unity government. In addition, the economic situation also deteriorated significantly, and after Operation Defensive Shield, an emergency economic plan was brought forth on April 25, 2002, which was called Economic Defensive Shield (חומת מגן כלכלית).
A temporary lull in terrorist attacks against Israelis was among the reasons that the Shas party ministers opposed the emergency economic plan and voted against it in the Knesset. This situation caused Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to fire the Shas ministers on May 20. Nevertheless, Shas rejoined the government on June 3, but this step was the beginning of the end of the unity government. On July 28 David Levy and his breakaway Gesher faction left the government due to their opposition to the budget. Although their departure was not significant at the time, further ahead this caused difficulties for the continued existence of the unity government.
When the Labor party withdrew from the unity government in September due to their opposition to the economic policy, the state budget, and the new defense policy, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government had to re-appoint several new ministers to his government. As a result,
Tal Law and its implications
On 23 July 2002, the Knesset approved the
The adoption of the law, which in practice legitimized the existing massive
Ariel Sharon's investigations
In late 1999, during Ariel Sharon's election campaign for the
These facts, coupled with the lack of clarity regarding the extent of Cyril Kern's businesses in Israel, became "political dynamite", and were investigated during the election campaign by the State Attorney's Office. On 6 January 2003, the details of the affair were revealed by Haaretz. (It turned out later on that the attorney Liora Glatt-Berkowitz, who was in charge of the investigation, leaked the information.)
The exposure of the affair caused a political storm and led to calls for the resignation of Ariel Sharon from the opposition. On the other hand, Likud members alleged that the leak of the affair's details was politically motivated and intended to harm Sharon's popularity.
Parliament factions
The table below lists the parliamentary factions represented in the 15th Knesset.
Name | Ideology | Symbol | Leader | 1999 result | Seats at 2002 dissolution | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Votes (%) | Seats | ||||||
Labor-Meimad | Social democracy | אמת | Amram Mitzna | 20.3%[a] | 24 / 120
|
25 / 120
| |
Gesher
|
Economic egalitarianism
|
David Levy | 2 / 120
|
2 / 120
| |||
Likud | National liberalism | מחל | Ariel Sharon | 14.1% | 19 / 120
|
21 / 120
| |
Shas | Religious conservatism
Populism |
שס | Eli Yishai | 13.0% | 17 / 120
|
17 / 120
| |
Meretz | Social democracy Secularism |
מרצ | Yossi Sarid | 7.6% | 10 / 120
|
10 / 120
| |
Yisrael BaAliyah | Russian speakers ' interests
|
כן | Natan Sharansky | 5.1% | 6 / 120
|
6 / 120
| |
Shinui | Liberalism Secularism |
יש | Tommy Lapid | 5.0% | 6 / 120
|
6 / 120
| |
Centre Party | Centrism | פה | Dan Meridor | 5.0% | 6 / 120
|
2 / 120
| |
Mafdal | Religious Zionism | ב | Zevulun Orlev | 4.2% | 5 / 120
|
5 / 120
| |
UTJ | Religious conservatism
|
ג | Yaakov Litzman | 3.7% | 5 / 120
|
5 / 120
| |
Ra'am | Arab nationalism Islamism |
עם | Ibrahim Sarsur | 3.4% | 5 / 120
|
5 / 120
| |
National Union | Right-wing populism National conservatism |
יט | Benny Elon
|
3.0% | 4 / 120
|
4 / 120
| |
Hadash | Communism Socialism |
ו | Mohammad Barakeh | 2.6% | 3 / 120
|
3 / 120
| |
Yisrael Beiteinu | Nationalism Secularism |
ל | Avigdor Lieberman | 2.6% | 4 / 120
|
4 / 120
| |
Balad | Pan-arabism
|
ד | Azmi Bishara | 1.9% | 2 / 120
|
2 / 120
| |
One Nation | Social democracy Democratic socialism |
ם | Amir Peretz | 1.9% | 2 / 120
|
2 / 120
|
Results
Centre Party 1,961 | 0.06 | 0 | −6 | | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Da'am Workers Party | 1,925 | 0.06 | 0 | 0 | |||||
Citizen and State | 1,566 | 0.05 | 0 | New | |||||
Man's Rights in the Family Party | 1,284 | 0.04 | 0 | 0 | |||||
Lahava | 1,181 | 0.04 | 0 | New | |||||
Za'am | 894 | 0.03 | 0 | New | |||||
Leader | 833 | 0.03 | 0 | New | |||||
Total | 3,148,364 | 100.00 | 120 | 0 | |||||
Valid votes | 3,148,364 | 98.36 | |||||||
Invalid/blank votes | 52,409 | 1.64 | |||||||
Total votes | 3,200,773 | 100.00 | |||||||
Registered voters/turnout | 4,720,079 | 67.81 | |||||||
Source: Israel Democracy Institute |
Aftermath
Apart from Likud's clear victory, the election was also a success for the secularist Shinui.[2][3] Despite gains by the right in the election, multiple polls showed strong public support for policies advocated by the left (such as dismantling settlements, unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza, and creating a Palestinian state).[2]
Ariel Sharon formed the 30th government on 28 February 2003. His coalition initially included just Shinui and the National Union, although Yisrael BaAliyah had merged into Likud soon after the election. On 3 March the National Religious Party joined the government.
Sharon's decision to implement the
Labor–Meimad joined the coalition in January 2005, with Agudat Yisrael added to the government in March 2005. Labor–Meimad later pulled out in November that year, the same month in which Sharon led a breakaway of fourteen MKs from Likud to form Kadima. Likud left the coalition in January 2006. Following Sharon's stroke,
The Knesset term also saw one of One Nation's MKs leave to form
Prior to the 2006 elections, United Torah Judaism split into Agudat Yisrael (three seats) and Degel HaTorah (two seats), whilst Ta'al (one seat) broke away from Hadash.
See also
- List of members of the sixteenth Knesset
- 2002 Israeli Labor Party primary
Notes
- ^ Labor, Meimad and Gesher ran as a joint list called One Israel.
References
- ^ "דוח מבקר המדינה: בחירות לראשות הממשלה - 2001".
- ^ a b James Bennet (January 29, 2003). "Israeli Voters Hand Sharon Strong Victory". The New York Times.
- ^ "Challenge begins for Shinui". 29 January 2003.
External links
- Historical overview of the Sixteenth Knesset Knesset website (in English)
- Factional and Government Make-Up of the Sixteenth Knesset Knesset website (in English)
- Election Polls from the Official Israeli Media
- The elections in Israel, 2003 By Alan Arian, Asher Arian, Michal Shamir